Social media is all the rage, but many business leaders are not yet clear on whether their company should use social media and what the potential benefits are. Mark McDonald identifies a set of core disciplines that organizations must master to translate mass collaboration (from social media) into real results. These disciplines include using social […]

In just a few years, social media has come to dominate many of our personal communications. We collaborate daily, sometimes productively, sometimes not. Most organizations, however, still view social media as a threat to productivity, intellectual capital, security, privacy, management authority, or regulatory compliance. In fact, this is the most common attitude among the more […]

Using social media to accomplish a meaningful purpose involves more than providing new technology and praying for success. Successful mass collaboration places new requirements on an organization, particularly its managers. While many organizations are technically ready for social media, they should question the readiness of managers to embrace new ways of working collaboratively to achieve […]

Many of us in business have heard the popular aphorism, “People are your greatest asset.” Some of us may even believe it. But is this sentiment reflected in our corporate cultures and the way our leaders lead? For the most part, no — and there’s a reason for that. People are not your greatest asset. […]

In most organizations, social media established a marketing beachhead. It served its purpose by raising awareness of a new set of technologies based on new principles of peer-to-peer discussion, openness, and cross-boundary communities. Indeed: the marketing organization has put social media technologies to work with very visible effect. But we need to break out social […]

In the real estate world, there is a saying: “The three considerations that most impact value are location, location, and location.” In the world of social media, they are purpose, purpose, and purpose. Nothing impacts the success of a social media effort more than the choice of its purpose. Because purpose becomes the cause around […]

On the surface, social media and knowledge management (KM) seem very similar. Both involve people using technology to access information. Both require individuals to create information intended for sharing. Both profess to support collaboration. But there’s a big difference. Knowledge management is what company management tells me I need to know, based on what they […]

Slowly but surely, business leaders are shifting their attitude toward social media — from seeing it as a threat to discovering its very real opportunities. And their attitude matters, a lot. Social media is about people, not technology. Its business value does not come from social software or a snazzy website, even one with 800 […]